Jazz

Tom Misch and Yussef Dayes’ What Kinda Music – an astonishing collaboration between two artists of very different disciplines, and one of the most unique and seamlessly original projects of its ilk to date. 

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a compilation album by American poet Gil Scott-Heron. It was released in 1974 by Flying Dutchman Records and titled after Scott-Heron's 1971 song of the same name

This release helped fuel the bossa nova craze in the United States and internationally.

Idris Muhammad recorded this classic Jazz-Funk album Turn This Mutha Out in 1977 for the Kudu label. Some great session musicians accompanied him and the album has that David Matthews signature Disco-Jazz-Funk sound.

After cutting these sides Baker and Evans would go their separate ways and these recordings remain the only testimony of their subtle and elegant musical interactions.

Easily one of the most important records ever made, this was Coltrane's pinnacle studio outing that spoke of his search for spiritual and musical freedom, as expressed through polyrhythms, modalities, and purely vertical forms.

The British jazz / hip hop fusion collective Us3 founded in 1992 in London and its notable members included producers Mel Simpson and Geoff Wilkinson. 

Dorothy Ashby was an American jazz harpist, one of the very few who used her instrument to play credible jazz and bebop.

Recorded on 15th February 1954 and 23rd / 30th July 1956 in Hollywood, California. Baker’s 14-track debut vocal album, originally released on Pacific Jazz in 1956.

Recorded live at the Village Vanguard on June 25, 1961, the same night as Sunday At The Village Vanguard, this set rounded out what became known as an early "full" portrait of Bill Evans.

Donald Byrd’s 1975 album Places and Spaces featuring the hits “Wind Parade” and “Dominoes” was the culmination of the great trumpeter’s fusion period.

Second only to Kind of Blue by Miles and Jazz Samba by Stan Getz, as the most commercially successful jazz record of all time (it even contained a single for the pop charts, Paul Desmond's magnificent Take Five'), Brubeck brilliantly popularised jazz and offered it as a palatable alternative to Bobby Vee

For this classic encounter, the only collaboration ever between Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, Duke sat in with the John Coltrane Quartet for a set dominated by Ellington's songs

Many great singers passed through the hands of late great soul/R&B producer Jerry Wexler, from Aretha Franklin to Dusty Springfield, but Etta James was a singer he willingly waited 20 long years to work with.

Sunday at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans and his Trio consisting of Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian. Released in 1961, the album is routinely ranked as one of the best live jazz recordings of all time.

Mercurial bassist and bandleader Charles Mingus was signed to Columbia records for the briefest of time during 1959.

On his third date for Blue Note within a year, Wayne Shorter changed the bands that played on both Night Dreamer and Juju and came up with not only another winner, but also managed to give critics and jazz fans a different look at him as a saxophonist.

The duo that critics have called "a match made in heaven" are in peak form on the sequel to their 1956 debut.

Album of the Year 2015 Number 7.A brazen release from young Los Angeles jazz giant, composer and bandleader Kamasi Washington.

Universally regarded as one of the greatest collaborations between the two most influential musicians in modern jazz (Miles Davis notwithstanding), the Jazzland sessions from Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane should be recognized on other levels. While the mastery of the principals is beyond reproach, credit should also be given to peerless bassist Wilbur Ware, as mighty an anchor as anyone could want. These 1957 dates also sport a variety in drummerless trio, quartet, septet, or solo piano settings, all emphasizing the compelling and quirky compositions of Monk.

Strut present the first official reissue of a landmark album in the field of African music, Mulatu Astatke’s Mulatu Of Ethiopia from 1972.

Celebrating 40 years since its first release, Johnny Hammond's Gears is given the deluxe treatment on CD and vinyl with the addition of six previously unreleased tracks and a brand new transfer from the original masters.

Great to have a vinyl reissue of one of Miles best. Scorned by critics at the time of its release, Miles Davis' 1972 album On the Corner is now seen as a forerunner of post punk, hip hop, drum and bass and electronic music, thanks to its revolutionary recording techniques.

Miles Davis (1926-1991) and Bill Evans (1929-1960) were two of the major luminaries in jazz history.

Long held as the jazz album that even non-jazz fans will own, Kind Of Blue not only changed the way people regarded Miles, it changed the very face of music itself.

This album is one of the reasons that Idris Muhammad is regarded as the drumming king of groove. 

Following the hugely popular first Acid Jazz (Not Jazz) release in 2022, label-heads Eddie Piller and Dean Rudland return with a second vinyl outing - We’ve Got A Funky Beat.

Influential dj, producer, radio-presentator and founder of the Acid Jazz, Talkin' Loud labels MBE Gilles Peterson has handpicked 11 of his jazz favourites from the immense catalog of the Dutch jazz Timeless label.

In a Silent Way' is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis, released on July 30, 1969.

"This important album, Monk's first after a long absence from the recording studio, is a stunning reaffirmation of his power as a performer and composer. It is a brilliant and absorbing program of five Monk originals and three standards (and they might just as well be originals, so startling is their transformation at his hands). This is a beautiful album in every respect." - Pete Welding, DownBeat Magazine

Ray Charles At Newport is a 1958 live album of Ray Charles' July 5, 1958 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival.

With the help of standout additional artists Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Hank Jones and Sam Jones, this is a record with a deep musical heritage and plenty of fine moments.

Fat Albert Rotunda is the venture into jazz-funk by keyboardist Herbie Hancock.

The legendary jazz harpist's most enduring set, 'The Rubáiyát of Dorothy Ashby' reconfigures the template for jazz vocal albums, fusing hard bop with the sublime spiritualism Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders channeled in the '60s and '70s.

With Ballads Coltrane looks into the warmer side of things, a path he would take with both Johnny Hartman and with Duke Ellington.

Djangology is a compilation album by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, released in 1961

Reissue of herbie hancock's essential 1962 debut album on blue note. the lp features quality sound taken from the original master tapes, 180g vinyl, heavy cardboard sleeve and original artwork.

Certainly, this edition of Return to Forever wasn't inclined toward high-voltage jazz-rock (as the next one was), but this group's two albums still stand as some of the most imaginative and distinctive early fusion recordings.

This 1952 collection is one of bebop’s key artefacts and also represents two jazz milestones: the only and only time that pianist Thelonious Monk recorded with the dynamic duo, and the last time Gillespie and Parker appeared together in the studio.

Oh yes! First ever official reissue of the positively sublime and very rare Butterfly LP, recorded in Tokyo in 1979 by Japanese songstress Kimiko Kasai and jazz legend Herbie Hancock.

Given that 'Round About Midnight was Miles Davis' debut Columbia recording, it was both a beginning and an ending. 

Full colour repro of original sleeve with flip-back detailing on reverse. Released in 1969, this is probably the best modern British jazz LP of all time. A beguiling mix of East meets West rhythms, ideas and joy, repressed with an authentic flip back sleeve. 

"Source" is the debut studio album by British jazz saxophonist Nubya Garcia, released on August 21, 2020. The album features a blend of jazz, soul, and Afrobeat influences, and has been praised for its dynamic and immersive sound.

This excellent set features one of the best recordings by the second version of the Jazz Messengers, and it is the only time that Blakey featured both altoist Jackie McLean and tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin together; Griffin soon became McLean's successor with the band.

Recorded in Madrid in July 2017, Shamal Wind combines Chip Wickham's globetrotting, spiritual jazz expeditions with hard-won schoolings in the funk.

The piano hero’s classic 1964 album. His third Blue Note LP. Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on 30th August 1963.

Contradictory accounts of Miles Davis’ creation of the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s film noir Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud have all become part of its legend.

Like his one-time boss, Miles Davis, Saxophonist Wayne Shorter can divide his long and established career into phases.

Brilliant Corners is Thelonius Monk's third disc for Riverside, and it's the first on the label to weigh in with such heavy original material.

Duke Ellington surprised the jazz world in 1962 with his historic trio session featuring Charles Mingus and Max Roach.

Two months after recording The Sidewinder, trumpet legend Lee Morgan was back in Van Gelder Studio in February 1964 creating his masterful sextet album Search for the New Land with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, Reggie Workman, and Billy Higgins.

Chet Baker Sings is unique in that the nimble artist sets aside his trumpet in several of the tracks, using only his vocals—and even scatting some of the improvised solos in a style that sounds very much like his lyrical trumpet playing.

An excellent drummer who has appeared in many types of settings, Idris Muhammad became a professional when he was 16.

A Single Woman is an album from 1993 by singer, pianist, and songwriter Nina Simone. It was her last album. In 1993, A Single Woman was placed 3th in the Top Jazz Albums.

Porgy And Bess’, recorded in late 1957, was the third album by Ella and Louis to be produced by Norman Granz.

As Late Night Tales moves into a new decade, the long awaited chapter from The Cinematic Orchestra greets us with style. Following editions from behemoths of rock Arctic Monkeys and Snow Patrol, The Cinematic Orchestra’s selection sees a return to a more typical Late Night compiler. Their association with the series reaches back to the inclusion of ‘Channel 1 Suite’ from their debut album ‘Motion’ on Zero7’s memorable 2002 compilation. With track selection and order seeing many revisions since the inception of the project, we arrive with one of the most defined Late Night Tales yet to come in the series 10 year history.

In June 1964, Grant Green recorded his blazing post-bop session for Solid, an album that would go unreleased until 1979 as Blue Note had success with the guitarist’s soul jazz outings of the time.

Nucleus's Elastic Rock is undisputedly a milestone in Jazz-Rock. A beautiful and vital debut album, it was first released on Vertigo in 1970.

This release presents the complete original Mongo Santamaria LP Watermelon Man!

Their masterpiece? With breaks for dayyyyyys and an almost ambient, heavy jazz atmosphere throughout, *this* is the apex of British jazz-rock fusion.

Recorded on 1st March 1962 at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Recorded in 1962 but not originally released until 1985. A classic post-bop album from a Blue Note legend.

Recorded in 1967 but not released until 1978, Lee Morgan’s The Procrastinator stands in hindsight as one of the monumental achievements of the trumpeter’s prolific late-60s output.

While the 1953 Bud Shank/Laurindo Almeida recordings were the precursors of the bossa nova-jazz fusion, the 1962 Stan Getz LP, Jazz Samba, would start the bossa nova craze.

Lonnie Liston Smith was one of the most important musicians to emerge in jazz in the 1970s. His 1975 album ‘Expansions’ is one of the foundation stones of modern dance music and his recordings have been sampled by many of the biggest artists in the world.

Carried by its almost impossibly infectious eponymous opening track, The Sidewinder helped foreshadow the sounds of boogaloo and soul-jazz with its healthy R&B influence and Latin tinge.

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is stereo, all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

"All the Vanguard music is informed by an extra sense of discovery, as if the musicians were suddenly aware of what they were on to and were celebrating the achievement."

Collection of jazz favourites from the Dutch jazz label Timeless Records (which celebrates its 50th Anniversary in 2025) compiled by world reknown jazz collector, labelboss, radio-jock and DJ Gilles Peterson.

This release presents the complete widely celebrated Massey Hall concert, performed in Canada by an all-star quintet of bebop founders which would never be reunited again.

Charlie Byrd (1925 -1999) was one of the first modern guitar players to reintroduce the unamplified Spanish guitar into jazz.

As his only release for Blue Note, this 1957 set is one of the finest bop albums recorded. 

Colin Curtis is back! with another finely curated selection of the best Jazz Dance Fusion records he could find.

It is fully a jazz album, and a completely funky soul-jazz disc as well. Smith plays both piano and electric keyboards and keeps his compositions on the jazzy side: breezy, open, and full of groove.

The fiery five-piece band that toured Europe in late 1969 unaccountably never made a studio LP, so high quality live recordings such as this are to be treasured.

Recorded in London in September 1979 with Jean Paul Florens on guitar, Henri Florens on piano, Jim Richardson on bass and Tony Mann on drums, this album features the only studio version of Round' Midnight by Chet Baker. 

Renowned Italian spiritual jazz master, DJ, producer, guitarist, and bandleader Nicola Conte proudly presents his new album Umoja via London based label Far Out Recordings.

Consisting of six new tracks, this once again sees Takuya displaying his unique hybrid sound, blending soulful jazz, funk, post-bop, fusion and hip hop.

The Hammond Organ maestro’s best-known album, featuring perennial favourites Main Theme From The Carpetbaggers and the killer title track.

Classic 1972 album. If there’s one word to summarize Donald Byrd’s career, it’s undoubtedly “eclectic.” 

Here's another classic from one of the greatest vibraphone players to ever grace the world of jazz.